My First Attempt at Meme-ing

Sunday Scribblings

#135 - Scandalous
Have you got some juicy gossip? What about a bit of scandal? Have you caused a commotion in your life? Would you like to? In this week full of politics and financial woe, let's add a bit of spice and fun, shall we?

Chicken

I have been a vegetarian since conception. In other words, my parents quit eating meat before I was born. Apparently one of my uncle's girlfriends once fed me a ham cube, but I couldn't help that. I mean, I was just a toddler--I didn't know any better.

Then, when I was six years old, my school held a pizza party. I can't remember the occasion. Anyway, I didn't want the veggie pizza because I was a picky child who hated green peppers and tomatoes. I took a slice of what I thought was cheese pizza. Near the crust, I found something round, red, and mostly eaten protruding from under the cheese. A pepperoni! How dare they hide meat in my pizza!

Fast forward 16 years. I was a senior in college, sitting at Taco Bell with a friend. She had ordered a chicken chalupa--something that always sounded strangely alluring to me. When a chunk of chicken dropped from her chalupa, the devil on my left shoulder told me to eat it:

"Come on, you know you want to."

The angel on my right shoulder put up a decent fight:

"You can't eat that. You don't know what will happen. You might get sick."

The bickering continued:

"Normal people eat meat. Even most vegetarians started out life as carnivores."

"You aren't "normal people."

Finally the devil half stuffed the chicken piece in the angel's mouth to hush her, and I tried it. It tasted like, well, chicken. The soy stuff, anyway. I felt that I had experienced a rite of passage. At 22 years of age I had finally tasted chicken. And I liked it.

I still haven't told my parents though.

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